Totally agree there is not a more true saying that "you don't know what you've got till it's gone". Once Andy hangs up his racket there will be a massive void as players of Andy's quality are few and far between and do not come along very often. He is a special talent and one that should be far more appreciated than he is. Bring on the AO 2012.......

The BBC did Andy no favours - they conveniently forgot to mention that the reason Andy was the only SPOTY nominee not present was because of his intensive training in Miami prior to the AO while, curiously, in the same programme Djokovic and Wozniacki WERE honourably excused for the exact same reason. The Xmas Eve edition of the Daily Mail made mention that Andy's team were not too happy about this 'oversight' by Auntie. Andy did great to come fifth in the circumstances.

They've failed to mention the reason in previous years as well, they just say "he can't make it" to the show.

No excuses here for the BBC. Djokovic and Wozniacki may be foreigners, and therefore possibly expected not to attend for whatever reason, but our own man clearly has no right in their eyes to take himself off to Miami to do his training. After all, if he wants to run along beaches, where better than Brighton in December? At least Andy still has his main residence in the UK, unlike Lewis Hamilton, for instance, who upped sticks and went to live in Switzerland.

BBC Scotland had no problem with this at all, and the announcement that Andy had won their award got a very enthusiastic reception, as did his modest video-recorded speech, so maybe the Beeb should just come right out with it and confine their SPOTY to English nominees in future, which would make sense since they're the only one of the four nations who doesn't have their own SPOTY.

Aileen, EBC (English Broadcasting Corporation) will NEVER give due deference to Andy until he bends to their wishes and interviews whenever they demand them.

The EBC always praise 1st Federer, 2nd Nadal and now 3rd Djokovic. Andy rarely even achieves an honourable recognition from EBC for all the hard work he puts into his training or that his training regime requires constant and dedicated work. It will always be thus, even if or when AM succeeds at Wimbledon. The EBC does not like Andy and we had better accept this situation as matters will never change, hurtful as it may be to us as MW members.

I'm sorry to say I told you so. Andy is NEVER going to have the support of the general English population and DO NO TELL ME I AM RACIST, I am not this is a constant always thrown back in my face and I am sick of it. The BBC is meant to be impartial but it is not. We were very lucky to have the Davis Cup coverage in Glasgow I almost fainted to learn it would be televised, it is not just tennis unless it is something important to an English audience it is not on BBC Scotland. Not only sport lots of jobs are being taken from London and put into regional centres, like Manchester, Birmingham and dare I say it Glasgow you would think they were being sent to the artic. Like Ann Robinson refusing to come up to Glasgow to record the weakest link. Those people are very well paid and if they are not willing to move they should lose their jobs. In this time of high unemployment they are very lucky to have a job. They do not want to leave the fleshpots of London and all their so called friends who pull all the strings for them.I wonder if they will be taking cuts in their salary ? maybe a few thousand pounds less !

Aileen, EBC (English Broadcasting Corporation) will NEVER give due deference to Andy until he bends to their wishes and interviews whenever they demand them.

The EBC always praise 1st Federer, 2nd Nadal and now 3rd Djokovic. Andy rarely even achieves an honourable recognition from EBC for all the hard work he puts into his training or that his training regime requires constant and dedicated work. It will always be thus, even if or when AM succeeds at Wimbledon. The EBC does not like Andy and we had better accept this situation as matters will never change, hurtful as it may be to us as MW members.

Sadly, OSS, I have long since come to the same conclusion, and this is one reason I think the idea of a general British SPOTY should be dropped, since the Scots, Welsh and N. Irish voters are always going to be out-numbered anyway by the English, and a quick look through the winners since its inception in 1954 confirms that, in those 57 years, the award has only been won by 7 non-English Brits -

ScotsIan Black (swimmer) who is SPOTY's youngest winner to date, winning the award in 1958 at the age of 17,Jackie Stewart, Liz McColgan and Chris Hoy

WelshDai Rees and Joe Calzaghe

N. IrishBarry McGuigan

Also The Guardian online's initial website heading referred to the English Sports Personality of the Year, but it's since been changed to BBC ...

The Scottish Award that Andy won was nothing to do with the BBC (Scottish or English) it is the Scottish Sports Awards (Sportsscotland) sponsored by the Sunday Mail. When watching the broadcast, it was so obvious that the majority of people in that room totally admired what Andy has achieved and were proud of his scottish roots and heritage. I think the problem with the BBC one is perhaps a bit of dare I say it anti scottishness" but also tennis is a relatively minority sport in comparison with footy and rugby etc. The coverage is far less on the likes of the BBC than say SKY and also the majority of supposed "tennis fans" are the ones that watch for 2 weeks during Wimbledon and think they know everything about Andy when we on here know that is not the case. Tennis exists for more than two weeks in July. It will be interesting to see what happens when Andy breaks his GS duck and I believe that will happen in 2012, the supposed "tennis fans" believe that Andy's success should only be judged on GS when in fact we know the extent of his achievements are brilliant despite that elusive GS. At the end of the day the SPOTY award is one that is not really important in the great scheme of things it would just be nice to see Andy get the appreciation that he deserves. I bet you he is not really that bothered about it and has more important things on his mind such as AO 2012 the reason why he could not be there in person on the 22nd !!!!!!

The Scottish Award that Andy won was nothing to do with the BBC (Scottish or English) it is the Scottish Sports Awards (Sportsscotland) sponsored by the Sunday Mail. When watching the broadcast, it was so obvious that the majority of people in that room totally admired what Andy has achieved and were proud of his scottish roots and heritage. I think the problem with the BBC one is perhaps a bit of dare I say it anti scottishness" but also tennis is a relatively minority sport in comparison with footy and rugby etc. The coverage is far less on the likes of the BBC than say SKY and also the majority of supposed "tennis fans" are the ones that watch for 2 weeks during Wimbledon and think they know everything about Andy when we on here know that is not the case. Tennis exists for more than two weeks in July. It will be interesting to see what happens when Andy breaks his GS duck and I believe that will happen in 2012, the supposed "tennis fans" believe that Andy's success should only be judged on GS when in fact we know the extent of his achievements are brilliant despite that elusive GS. At the end of the day the SPOTY award is one that is not really important in the great scheme of things it would just be nice to see Andy get the appreciation that he deserves. I bet you he is not really that bothered about it and has more important things on his mind such as AO 2012 the reason why he could not be there in person on the 22nd !!!!!!

I agree with all those sentiments MM. And it would be madness for Andy to break his training to appear in person at SPOTY.Also agree that tennis doesn't have the same kind of all year following that footy has. So given that, Andy coming 5th was pretty good. Interesting that BBC quite often picks a tennis player for its international award even though it gives diminishing time to tennis in its schedules - an easy victim for the cuts apart from Wimbledon. Just hoping that the bbc tennis website isn't also a casualty as that can be pretty good sometimes.

Andy will win Wimbledon at some point (maybe not the first point) perhaps on a number of occasions.And then the Brits shall rally behind him as they are starting to anyway.Look at the support he recieved against Nadal at wimbledon compared to the year before.I'm English, I don't know any Scots as there aren't that many here in London. But I'm a huge supporter of him and I know many people who casually follow Tennis that are interested in him too.But first and foremost it's about Tennis, not where Andy is from.I get the whole national pride thing but Andy is becoming a world star now and whether you like it or not he is representing the whole of the uk, at least that's how foreigners see it. Because the see a small island with a lot of similarities.So let's not get too bitter about one sportsman of the year show because the fact is Andy did not remotely deserve to win this silly award anyway & will not until he truly excels which is when he wins a slam. End of.If the media still ignores him then well that is cause for anger but I doubt it will happen.Another thing, screw the Daily Mail.Who cares what they or their readers think?

Andy will win Wimbledon at some point (maybe not the first point) perhaps on a number of occasions.And then the Brits shall rally behind him as they are starting to anyway.Look at the support he recieved against Nadal at wimbledon compared to the year before.I'm English, I don't know any Scots as there aren't that many here in London. But I'm a huge supporter of him and I know many people who casually follow Tennis that are interested in him too.But first and foremost it's about Tennis, not where Andy is from.I get the whole national pride thing but Andy is becoming a world star now and whether you like it or not he is representing the whole of the uk, at least that's how foreigners see it. Because the see a small island with a lot of similarities.So let's not get too bitter about one sportsman of the year show because the fact is Andy did not remotely deserve to win this silly award anyway & will not until he truly excels which is when he wins a slam. End of.If the media still ignores him then well that is cause for anger but I doubt it will happen.Another thing, screw the Daily Mail.Who cares what they or their readers think?

You're right about that. Andy has fans all around the world and they love him in Asia.

However BBC are definitely luke warm. I just watched the rerun of the SPOY awards and I did notice they failed to mention all the titles he actually won this year. OK not grand slams but you still have to beat real talent to win non slam events. I thought they would at least show him winning at Queens and might mention he got to number 3. McEnroe was nice though.

Another thing.We understand Andy better that the casual Tennis fan no doubt.But even we (most of us) are still very frustrated about Andys immaturity & poor on court demeanour.Yes he is a very popular guy on tour and a 'very good person' (I'm quoting Ferrer here) off court.But some of his behaviour on court has been ridiculous and self destructive & that's what people get to see.I'm not surprised at all many have not taken a shine to him, when you consider how focused, mature and positive Nadal and Roger have been.Surely no one here can be perplexed at this.If only they knew the real Murray, but I'm sure in time as he develops & his real personality shines through, they will.

MT I would rather he gets a slam and wins this award than yet more accusations of hype from his detractors as that would certainly be the case.Clare Balding was probably right about him not even deserving to be in the top ten this year. Remember hype could be a factor in his behaviour and one of the reasons his talent is taking a long while to mature.Who cares really anyway I see a bigger picture on this and I am sure when he gets his plaudits it shall be when he really deserves it like everything else hes achieved. And we can all take the collective opportunity the occasion provides to tell his naysayers to getRoyally STUFFED!Trust me, it shall be all the sweeter if timed well.